Shatterpoints and Siege Engines
by skywalker05
Summary: Paranoia, siege, diplomatic relations with the geth, paparazzi, Jack’s worst nightmare, Kal’Reegar, Ambassador Udina, and Commander Shepard-Moreau. Post-games. Full summary inside.
1. Chapter 1

**Full, better summary: **After the defeat of the Reapers, Kendra Shepard's problems have mostly involved dodging the attention of the media, watching reruns of the TV she missed while she was dead, and trying to find time to be happily married. But when she leads a movement to grant the geth their own planet and place in the galactic community, not everyone is happy. A mysterious assailant traps Shepard, Joker, Udina, and other members of the crew inside the Normandy SR-2 and leaves them to face their inner demons and grow increasingly suspect of each other.

**Author's Note: **This started out as me having fun writing something post-game. I've dropped hints about what I think happens in ME3, but didn't want to make really solid predictions—undoubtedly this isn't going to jive with the next game at all, but I tried, and had fun speculating. The story starts a little slow but will be multichapter and mostly an action/adventure fic, with a little romance and bittersweet angst thrown in: married!Shoker is the main ship (pun!), and I might get some Tali/Kal in here, because I think in lieu of Tali/Man!Shep it should happen. Also, thanks to _wordswithout _for the beta.

Enjoy!

* * *

I.

The Council tower was the most-watched building on the Citadel, and floating cams and holo recorders were gathered en masse in its heart tonight. To Joker Moreau, watching from one of the public balconies, it seemed like everyone who'd ever held an opinion about politics was in this room, wanting everyone _else _who had opinions about politics to hear what they thought about the geth being given their own planet.

The Council of Four was making a decision that brought people in crowds, all jostling and craning their necks to see the speaking platforms, raising chatter in every alien accent humanity knew. With the rest of them, Joker watched as the thin, dark-armored figure walked up the brightly polished gantry in front of the crowd hushed for Kendra Shepard, their sounds dying to a respectful silence.

The pastel-painted walls and open skylights made the Council chamber seem lit from the interior. _This place is _pretty_, _Joker thought. _Bet it wasn't this clean when Sovereign crashed into it. They really fixed it up…should have put in more benches. _He leaned on a railing between a turian and a quarian, feeling old aches push at his legs and hips.

The turian councilor spoke first, his amplified voice booming over the crowd. "Welcome back, Commander Shepard." If Joker had learned anything from listening to Garrus, there was a hint of that specific turian brand of sarcasm in the councilor's formality. "I trust your mission went well."

The official mission report had already been submitted and discussed—this was all for the media. The mission _had _gone well, except for that one part where they'd all thought Legion was dead. Joker thought he saw Kendra look up to find him in the crowd before she started to speak, but his face would be as much a tan blankness at this distance as hers was to him. That didn't stop him from trying to make eye contact.

Her voice was amplified too, crisp and clear. "The geth have settled down on the world Daedalus. They have a functioning government—although it's hard to define that word when referring to a hive mind. I can reassure you that they will not cause any more wanton destruction in the galaxy. The geth that worked with Sovereign were one faction of a complex species—one that right now has no motive to attack others and plenty of incentive not to. I will vouch for them personally, in front of any authority."

Some members of the audience clapped; Joker noticed that the quarian next to him didn't. Personally, he was relieved. Legion's brethren on the rimward planet called Daedalus were even more of one mind than usual since the end of the extinction cycles. They were going to try to be normal members of the galactic community. Hopefully the tenuous peace the Normandy crew had recently come back from brokering would say intact.

There would be a public forum later, but for now, after a short speech by the councilors, the session ended with a resounding round of applause. Around Joker, the crowd was abuzz with opinions and angers—at the geth, at the council, at Captain Anderson or humans or quarians. Joker kept his head down and his mouth shut as he worked his way down from the viewing balcony. The braces caging his legs felt heavy, but much less inconvenient than the crutches he'd considered bringing. Couldn't blame him for being _tired _after a mission. _Excuse me, mister volus. Unsung hero coming through._

He heard so many debates that were _this _close to fistfights starting among the watchers that by the time he reached the promenade one flight down from the councilors' dais and saw _one of his most favorite people _making violent gestures at a quarian, he felt almost like starting one himself.

Once-Ambassador Udina was now advisor to the councilor whom Joker still thought of as Captain Anderson. His stalwart ability to irritate had not changed.

The quarian had orange eyes and a husky voice, and addressed Udina in a rush. "Human history ought to tell you that it is insurmountably difficult to guide the course of a former enemy's cultural development without intimate knowledge of that culture. It's far from _any _of us to know the geth's core desires, but _we _should have been the ones to…"

Udina's reply was pompous enough that Joker wasn't sure what side to take. If it had been anyone else defending humanity, he'd have launched into trying to convince her that it was not just humanity, but the multispecies Normandy crew that had worked all these years to make peace and stability for the geth. But before he could decide whether or not to speak, he saw Shepard weaving quietly through the crowd toward Udina and knew that she would be the defining factor in the argument. She caught his eye and skirted the debate first, and he drew back behind a column to meet her. She hurried her last few steps to slip her arms across his shoulders and kiss him.

"Good speech," he said. He couldn't help but smile as her green eyes softened from their Council-defying stare.

She laid a hand against his chest. "Thanks for being here."

The quarian in the debate with Udina said something loud. "Business calls," Shepard murmured. They turned together to merge back into the crowd, both knowing that Shepard didn't have the luxury of anonymity for long.

The quarian shifted her gaze to her as Udina glowered. "Captain Shepard!"

"It's Commander Shepard-Moreau," she replied without rancor. "Can I help you?"

The quarian wore a blue suit sprinkled with silver, and although her expression couldn't be told her voice was sharp. "You can explain how giving the geth autonomy isn't my species' prerogative but somehow _yours_."

"Ma'am, the chief ambassador during this settlement project has been Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, along with the geth Legion."

"Vas _Normandy. _A human ship."

"For a woman very loyal to the quarians."

The quarian woman scoffed, but fought her voice down to calmness. "I do not begrudge your species, commander. I will keep up to date on your ambassadors' progress."

"Of course. _Keelah se'lai._"

Joker tried not to look too smug as the quarian's shoulders jumped. "_Keelah se'lai!_" She looked around at the three humans with quick, catlike flicks of her masked head. Then she moved off, not bothering to say goodbye to Udina.

The ambassador scowled at Shepard. "We'll be untangling the knot of this decision for months."

"It's worth it," Shepard said, her stance ready and relaxed. Udina grumbled, but then his comm clicked; press conferences were beginning. Shepard sighed; as advisor to the Council she was supposed to go too.

"Get your speech ready, commander," Udina said as way of goodbye. "The public will only get more unsettled from here, until we have proof of your…dramatic claim."

As he hurried off, Shepard moved quietly to the edge of the concourse and pulled Joker with her. He snugged his arms around her waist. "Tired of politics yet?"

She gave him a nauseatingly chaste kiss on the cheek, her eyes mischievous. "Always…although the clandestine meetings have improved." Another kiss at the edge of his lips and she ghosted away. He reluctantly made his way toward the elevator, wondering about how the conference would go. There wouldn't be any problems—Shepard was strong. She might come back to their apartment grumbling about how she'd rather be on a command deck than a press conference any day, but she'd be safe.

On the Presidium, there were more tourists and reporters lurking around the entrance to the council tower than usual. He tried to ignore them, looking instead toward the hubward C-Sec headquarters. Somewhere over there on the other side of the Citadel arm, practically beneath his feet, the Normandy was docked. Sometimes that battered old ship felt more like home than the apartment that the Council had set aside for him and Shepard did.

It was hard to image that the blue sky of the Citadel today was the same place he'd flown through almost six years ago. He'd charged through Sovereign's defenses and broken the claw-shaped Reaper ship into smoking black shards, and afterward the Citadel had clamped down and cleaned up. Their recovery was almost as impressive as his flying had been.

"Excuse me, Mr. Moreau. Excuse me—" The reporter was human and hid his eyes with reflective glasses. "You were on Daedalus when the geth became…" His shades turned pastel yellow; Joker figured that he had notes displayed on the inside. "quote 'confused enough for a faction to rebel against the shore party'. That shore party was made up of members of the council races, including your human wife. Do you not see this as a sign that the geth are a threat?"

Joker nervously rubbed at the back of his neck, glaring at the reporter from under the brim of his cap. This was one of the problems with the Citadel—the paparazzi. At least this guy wasn't from the tabloids. "Sure they could be dangerous," he tried, "but the geth weren't exactly warm and fuzzy before. We had to give them a chance to see that we could help them. That we know justice doesn't just mean an eye for a…" He gestured in front of his face in the rough shape of a geth head as he tried to find the right words. "flashlight-thing."

Other reporters were gathering around, Shepard's name popping up over and over in their muttering. Joker sighed; he was sure he'd heard all these questions before. "Yes, I think Shepard's right," he said, louder. "And not because I _have _to." He turned to go, found his way blocked by a camera. Fortunately, there was also a familiar, wall-sized krogan hump behind the reporter.

Urdnot Wrex pushed through the crowd, his voice rumbling. "Out of the way. We've got somewhere to be."

"What are you doing here?" Joker hissed, relieved—unless of course Wrex was here with a grievance. If he killed someone important, there'd be even _more _questions to answer.

Wrex didn't bother to whisper, if that was even possible for krogans. "Grunt is in his own press conference—I came to back him up. Maybe crack some heads."

"Great, great." _Krogans. _

"Excuse me, Urdnot Wrex!" The reporter called out. _He's braver than I thought. _"What do you think about the inclusion of the geth in the galactic community?"

Wrex's voice boomed. "I think that humanity has shown their worth, if Shepard's any example, and that if you guys wanna keep the geth as pets, feel free to try it. If a varren doesn't listen to you, you shoot it." Wrex clapped a massive hand down on Joker's shoulder. "Come on."

Squirming in Wrex's wake, Joker escaped the paparazzi. "Thanks for that," he managed as they walked along the Presidium, the forest of cameras behind them turning as if in a high wind to focus on someone else coming out of the Council tower.

"Commander Shepard always liked to help the weak. I respect her despite that little flaw; she'd like if I did the same. Don't get used to it."

_Why don't we put me in a ship and see who's weak_ started in the back of his throat, but he didn't think Wrex beating him in the middle of the Presidium would be good for today's precarious interspecies relationships. "I won't. Bye, Wrex."

He got a grunt in return as the krogan lumbered off. Joker watched him go for a moment, then moved over to the rapid transit station before anybody with a camera dared to approach him again.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Chapter the second. The third will feature Tali, Legion, and Kal, including more of an explanation of why the geth are living planetside. Oh dear I'm balancing a lot of writing right now. The plot bunnies...attack in packs...Oh, and reviews make me as happy as...a happy thing. Thanks for reading!

* * *

II.

He hadn't nightmared like this in a long time. The memories had been distant lately; maybe that's why they survived so vividly in dreams. They were lurking.

_He's on the floor staring at the yellow reflections on the shining glass. There's a fracture or something spreading pain along his thigh because the gravity of the escape pod is still working and the fall through was frakking abrupt. The brainless pod computer is telling him it's set to rendezvous with the other pods at _these coordinates_, would he like to set a new course? _

_ The Normandy is all sparks now, all orange dots like the ashes under fire. Poke it with a stick and it'll shatter. Shepard is falling away—such a thin body against huge black space. He sees the suit seals pop and it's like his heart has sunk heavy and rotting against his spine and squeezed it. If it weren't for him—_

_ He makes himself watch, slack-jawed and dry-lipped, as the atmosphere takes her. The comm fills with more and more static. Her silence wars with her screamed name fading from his echoing ears._

_ The pod turns away slowly, rolling to face the stars and a smoldering hunk of Normandy. He lays back and pulls in the electric-smelling oxygen of his emergency mask. _

_ After a few silent, brain-numbing minutes, Kaiden's voice comes over the computer on the other side of the pod. "Flight Lieutenant. Flight Lieutenant. Hey, Joker."_

_ He braces his arm against a jumpseat and works his weight onto his right ankle. His left leg is useless and protesting enough that a string of curses eke from his tightened throat. On the comm, Kaiden obviously hasn't heard him. The biotic is talking to himself. _

_ "Hold together, Alenko. Call the Alliance."_

_ Joker drags himself across the pod seats to the control board. Kaiden's call was on an open channel; he mustn't have been sure who else survived, but he'd been watching Shepard too._

_ "Alenko."_

_ "Joker! You made it."_

_ Why is he so happy about _that_ with _her _gone? Joker can't help but make his voice go flat and cold like after Virmire. "Let's hold a parade. Call the Alliance—maybe we can recover Shepard."_

_ There's _don't count on it_ in the silence before Kaiden says "Maybe." He says nothing else besides pinging the Alliance emergency channel._

_ Joker's usually the one not talking when he doesn't have to, but as he slumps against the back of the chair he has so much to say. _If I could kill the guys who took us down I'd do it right now, bare hands. I'd—what wouldn't I do to be a few hours ago, to be able to remember anything she's ever said beside her last words.

_ Kaiden says, "A rescue boat's inbound. ETA one hour." He sounds so tired._

_ "Great."Joker doesn't bother opening his eyes. The pain in his leg is overrunning his brain and threatening his breathing. He tries to use the pain to stay calm. He's always been good at that; he settles into fight mode and finds stillness there. Kaiden's not still. He's just not panicking because he hasn't broken anything._

_ This leg isn't going to heal well if he doesn't brace it. There's a medkit on the far side of the pod; not far away but too blasted far away. He gets to work with splints and medigel, and he's wrapped everything up so tight that one last pull sends pain splashing up into his brain and drowning it._

He woke up in his apartment on the Citadel, cold with sweat. The blinds were closed so that he couldn't see the ancient Prothean arms of the landscape surrounding them. Shepard stirred, turned in her sleep, and he cupped his palm around the smooth curve of her shoulder for his own reassurance. _She'll wake up soon. It's over. It's all over._ But he was reminded, sometimes when she slept, and he was stuck in a mélange of memory and dream, staring at the empty casket at her funeral.

_He watched as hundreds of strangers filed past his best friend's memorial. There wasn't any body. Didn't it matter, didn't they know there wasn't any body—_

_ He was wearing a suit and tie but the wind was cold on his arms and his scalp. They held the funeral on the Citadel, made it public. Cameras were stationed around the outskirts of the lawn like defensive turrets. He couldn't stop seeing her drift away as the Normandy died._

_The line of black-clad mourners kept going, kept dropping flowers for the hero who let them all keep on living. She saved every one of them from the Reapers. _

_ Others lingered too, like ravens circling. They converged on Joker as he simply refused to leave. Tali, Liara… dressed in black lace and hooded cowls. Kaiden, Garrus…black suits with their medals of honor skewered on. Wrex….same old thing. None of them know what to say. Kaiden, Tali, and Captain Anderson gave speeches; Joker hadn't planned on making one, but he could feel words battering at his throat unrehearsed._

_ He wondered for a moment who Kaiden was talking to when the biotic lifted his bowed head to say "Hello, ma'am." _

_ It was a pudgy blonde-haired woman, rapidly blinking. Shepard's mother, Hannah. She'd stopped crying, but tears gathered in the wrinkles around her eyes. Shepard must have gotten those eyes from her father, but something in the set of her jaw was the same as her mother's._

_ Hannah looked at the crew one by one. Joker tried not to slouch under a gaze that practically demanded a salute. She said, "I…I wanted to thank all of you. For keeping…" her voice cracked. "For staying with my daughter." _

_Suddenly Joker was ready to give his speech. "Ma'am," he said, "she was the bravest, most…shocking woman I ever knew. That's a good thing, _shocking_. She kept up this soldier mask, but, sometimes…it wasn't that she was _unfeeling_. It's just that underneath the feeling mask there was more…indestructible…It took space to take her down, ma'am. It took shear force."_

_ He turned away and felt the tears come, hot. No way was he going to let Alenko and Mrs.—Captain—Shepard see this. Heck, "Hannah" could probably kill him with a finger just like Kendra could. _

_ Kaiden put a hand on his shoulder. He could hear Garrus dealing with the mother, but then somehow she pushed through and stared at Joker again. _

_"You're her pilot."_

_ He met her eyes. "Yes ma'am."_

_ A long look as Hannah adjusted her cowl. "She was closest to you?"_

_ "And Doctor Chakwas. I mean, it wasn't just me. She liked to talk to everybody. Probably…talked to everybody."_

_ There was more she had to say, but it was clipped away behind her painted lips. "Thank you." And she slipped away, floating along the line of mourners like she wanted to feel more solid than they were._

_ "She never cracked for me," Kaiden said quietly. "I guess I only saw one layer of indestructible."_

_ Joker didn't want to react to the quiet bitterness in Kaiden's voice. He pushed one palm across his face to shift the wetness of his tears around. "Don't worry about it. Doesn't matter now."_

He didn't like to dwell on the past, and it wasn't in his nature to see the grim side of joyful things. He'd rather remember her rebirth.

After Freedom's Progress, she was all business, all cold and _I'm not going to freak out even though I'm not in my own body any more. _ But then, when he went shuffling down the gantry to settle into his new pilot's chair, she followed and snuck her arms around him with a half-smile on her lips and _don't try to stop me _in her eyes. It surprised him just a little, but he'd been wanting this and hardly noticing it for so long that it wasn't awkward to turn and rest his forehead against hers, to pull her toward him by the material of the flightsuit over her hips to make sure she was all _real_.

He couldn't remember what he said then, but as muttered and muddled as it was it must have been okay because she was just as muddled and awed and comforted back.

He'd learned more about her than he ever thought he would that year; learned that she collected model ships and had a Blasto poster on her bedroom wall, learned that she was trying to catch up on reruns of sci-fi shows after she'd been dead for two years. He learned that she'd forget to feed the pet fish if he didn't remind her.

On the eve of battle, he found the scars stitched across her back and she shivered against his skin.

"We'll make it," she told him. "We'll make it."

"Sure we will," he said. "By now we're pretty much experts at impossible things…"

And at the wedding, everyone was still alive and wearing white this time, and Kaiden had a new glass of wine in his hand every time Joker saw him. Chakwas wore something old-fashioned and elegant and insisted that she'd known all along it would happen—ever since a mildly drunk Shepard toasted Joker in the medical bay. Tali wore beautiful white wrappings over her suit; Jack was still wearing black but at least she was in more clothes than usual, which everyone knew was the best they'd get out of her. Wrex told Joker with his usual gruff truthfulness that he'd never survive a krogan marriage ritual. Joker would have bet on that being true.

During the reception, Hannah Shepard gave him a hug so strong that it nearly threatened his collarbone. "You take care of her," she said, loud enough that it sounded like a command. _Love her, Flight Lieutenant. Or else I demote you. And then shoot you. _"I know you know what that means."

He knew that it didn't mean anything as simple as it sounded.

Shepard had compromised between beauty and functionality for the ceremony. Her dress hugged her legs while its tailed edges trailed like a cloak. She'd looked this beautiful before, sure—after battle with blood on her lips, before it when she stood confident and cold beside him. But this was beauty with promise in it, with _I will always be here. I will always run to you first._

He was still so shocked that Kendra had chosen him. Sure he was the best pilot in the Alliance fleet—any other fleet too, if that race with the quarians last year had been any indication. But she was better—better in ways that really mattered, like loyalty and cleverness and pure bullheaded refusal to give up. He lay beside her and didn't _need _to think about politics, about anything except how niceand _comfortable _life felt right now…

Until the klaxon rang.

Joker opened his eyes, instantly awake. It was the house comm making all that noise, but not its normal, soft tone—this was the blare of an Alliance emergency alarm. _Warning. Warning. Something's gone wrong. _He got a quick glimpse of blonde hair sliding across Shepard's back as she lurched out of bed toward the comm in the next room

_Reapers, geth, husks—time to fire up the thrusters and go._

Joker sat up. Through the open bedroom doorway he could see Shepard pull her robe closed around her neck and scowl as she read the ID of the caller. The light through the blinds was early-morning gray. He started pulling on his uniform as Udina's voice invaded the sitting room.

"Commander. There's been a security breach on the Normandy—it shut off quickly, but that means nothing. No suspects yet but we've got a crew working on it, heading up the elevator."

"We'll be there soon," Shepard replied. "Practically now."

"C-Sec techs are working on it. It could be a minor malfunction."

"We'll be there. Have you tried to contact the crew?"

"No one is picking up their comm."

"It's not a malfunction. We'll meet you there."

Joker stood up, settling the braces around his legs. "I'll call Kelly," he said.

Shepard nodded. She got dressed in her Alliance uniform as he punched in the Normandy's main line. Who was on the ship right now? He tried to take stock. Not Tali and Legion—they were on Daedalus. That left Yeoman Chambers, those engineers that thought they were so witty, Jack, a skeleton crew of midshipmen…

The channel wouldn't open. Nothing but static.


	3. Chapter 3

III.

Kendra Shepard wished that the rapid transit system was just a little more rapid. She tried to count which crewmembers weren't accounted for and might be in danger. Samara and Garrus were offworld pursuing their preferred brands of justice. Wrex and Grunt had headed back to Tuchanka. Jacob, Doctor Chakwas, and Kaiden were housed in Alliance-funded quarters just like Shepard and Joker were. Thane had returned to Khaje, the hanar homeworld, with promises to visit—promises not to die alone. Miranda…she might be behind this, although she'd gone into reclusive study after killing the Illusive Man. Mordin was back in the clinic on Omega, improving the station's shady economy, as well as its health, with his fame. They were safe.

Jack wasn't…and it was a strong enemy that could shut up Jack. Shepard had been waiting to hear her cut into Udina's conversation at any moment. The uber-biotic had never really found her place after the invasion, not even in the depths of the Normandy. Of course, she would have said—and maybe it was true—that the ship _was _her place. It was the centerpiece to the story of her life.

Shepard liked to think that somewhere, someone (probably God but maybe just some bored, clever human) was writing a story of her life, giving it themes and meaning, making it something she could look back on her deathbed and say _it all makes sense._

Not only did she want life to make sense, but science fiction stories were her favorite. Adventure, aliens, new weapons and tech—every once in a while she looked around and realized she was in one, and some of the pains of it being _real_, of people dying and fighting, faded away to be replaced by a sense of fun and how lucky she was not to be living the civilian life. Not every soldier would have agreed…but not every soldier had a stash of 21st century movies either.

Shepard matched her pace to Joker's without much thought about it as they made their way to the C-Sec docking bay. Udina and a hulking turian guard were blocking the way to the elevator, Udina with his arms folded and the guard with his omnitool activated and communication channels open.

The blue light through the smoky glass door of the elevator gave the right side of Udina's face a bright cast. Shepard still felt a little sinking feeling whenever she saw him, remembering how solidly he'd stood in her way during the fight with Saren, but she'd also come to understand him better since then. Maybe he wouldn't say he'd rather humans had never joined the larger galactic community, but he had a vibe of old guard around him, and it manifested as strong pride in his species.

That didn't mean she wanted to talk to him now. "What's the situation?" she asked, practically twitching to see the state of her ship.

"Your AI set off the intruder alarms twenty minutes ago," said the turian guard. "Five seconds later it shut down and we tried to call in, but neither the AI nor the crew picked up. The docking cameras went off a second later. It looks like an inside job, ma'am."

"We can handle it, commander." Udina said.

She glared at him. "Why are you even awake?"

"Old people do that sometimes when they can't sleep," he growled. "C-Sec alerted the human embassy; I was the first to get the mail."

_Sounds legit. Keep that in mind. _To the guard, she said, "Is the elevator working?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Then there's no reason we shouldn't be on it." Shepard turned as boots marched across the foyer toward them. It was a squad of four blue-uniformed security men with rifles slung over their shoulders. Their captain saluted and presented his own rifle to Shepard, who took it gratefully and prepped it, scanning the make and how much buildup its heat sink could take. The C-Sec squad leader unholstered the blunt-nosed pistol from his belt.

"Come on." Joker gestured for one of the C-Sec guys to give him a gun. A young, blue-eyed human hesitated with his hand halfway to the rifle magnetically sealed to the back of his flak jacket.

"Sir," the kid said, "We don't know what we're gonna run into out there…"  
_Good luck_, Shepard thought; _the Normandy's under attack. Nobody's going to stop him—or me- from getting up there._

"Whatever it is, that's my ship and…and it's my ship!" He held out a hand, insistent, and the gun was handed over.

Udina said, "I'm going with you."

Shepard had been about to call the elevator. She didn't stop. "It might be safer…" _for my blood pressure _"…if you stay here, ambassador."

"The press hasn't gotten word of this yet. I intend for them not to—not until I know the facts."

She looked at him for a moment before punching the button. She didn't know him well, not beyond the fact that he seemed to devote his life to annoying her. After the attack on Earth and the final push that drove the Reapers back through the crumbling Mars Relay, the next time she'd seen him was in the Council chamber looking weary. He'd been wrong, and it had perhaps made him determined to be right for the rest of his life. He was always around, keeping tabs on the biggest news stories of the day—especially if they concerned Shepard. She didn't know what he wanted from her, but she believed in being kind to people—even if they were people who ruined your day a little bit just by being there.

Every story needed a main character and a foil—and he was one of hers.

The eight of them rode the elevator up into warm early-morning breeze. The stars glowed between the arms of the Citadel, far beyond the cordoned-off end of the docking strut. One of the things Shepard liked most about the Citadel was how it seemed both close to space and insulated from it at the same time. She'd grown up with the caution of the spacer; check your suit seals, recycle your water, respect the fact that the gravity wouldn't work on some days. Maybe that's why she hadn't become space-shy after she'd fallen from the Normandy; she'd always known the danger she was getting into when she and Joker struggled out of the dying ship, probably known it better than any Earthling could. (But she'd faced it for him, faced warning klaxons and oxygen crystallizing on her faceplate and _everything _for him, and she'd do it again.)

On the new Normandy, she'd felt at home again, only sometimes remembering the gaping silence outside the viewports and knowing how close it was to getting in. When it scared her bad she went to talk to Tali or Joker or Chakwas. The doctor would reminisce, Tali would tell her about the Fleet, and Joker would lace his fingers through hers and lay her hand over the orange whorl of the console and ask where she wanted to go. He'd look at her with that glimmer in his eyes that said he knew she didn't want to go anywhere any more.

She moved to stand beside him as the elevator doors opened. The Normandy hung under the disk-shaped docking clamps to their left, its yellow lights picking out the line of windows as the morning sun glinted silver along its flanks.

Shepard readied her rifle. "Everybody find some cover," she shouted. "Who knows what they're gonna throw at us."

The C-Sec crew spread out, crouching behind crates or the walls near elevator with their weapons pointed at _my harmless ship…_

A shaft of light fell flat across the decking as the Normandy's airlock opened. A heartbeat later, the pinpoint laser guns under the ship's wings flared to crackling life and fired on the wall behind Shepard. Mortar rained down from the crater, ticking on the ground. Two C-Sec agents, a turian woman and the kid who had handed Joker his rifle, charged toward the open door.

Two blasts lanced out and engulfed them in a sparkling beam of light. Shepard hooded her eyes for a moment, hearing debris pock against the decking. When she looked up, the decking was buckled and the guards were blackened skeletons. Their captain crouched behind Shepard, cursed. The mouths of the Normandy's guns glowed, venting their excess heat. The little squad crouched behind their low cover, realizing that starship-armor-piercing artillery was trained on them.

Joker groaned out a series of curses that segued neatly into "My ship…"  
"Why haven't they _stolen _it?" Shepard muttered.

"Fear of your vengeance, I hope."

"I hope." She looked over her shoulder. "Advisor Udina. Captain."

"Turik, ma'am," the turian provided.

"Captain Turik. I'm gonna put a biotic field over those guns and you're gonna run to the airlock. You'll be safe inside the first chamber. Understood?"  
"I didn't know you went through Brain Camp, ma'am."  
_Do I tell them? Yes. No false hope. _"I didn't. Figured a little bit out myself. Either way, whoever's manning those guns is going to shoot these crates out from in front of us if I don't."

Turik glanced at his tense, remaining squad members, his mouthparts clicking and one hand straying to a pocket in his jumpsuit. Maybe it was the onset of trust, or futility, she didn't know, but _something _changed in his eyes. "Yes ma'am. I need a volunteer with me. On Shepard's signal we get to the ship."

"Sir." Quickly, another turian saluted.

"On my signal." Shepard took a deep breath. She knew what needed to be done—just not quite whether it was possible. Jack had done something similar in the Collector base…but Shepard was nowhere near as strong a biotic as Jack.

She held up her hands, pushing into the state of mind where she could image element zero running through her veins, irradiating her blood with the blue of lightspeed. A corona flickered over her skin, burning through to show around her clothes. "Go."

As she pictured it, a blue orb burst from her hands and dashed neon against the cannons slung under the ship's wings. The two turians moved out.

She covered them, raising her hands to maintain the field's focus while she took long steps out into the open, crossing one foot in front of the path of the other to keep herself in the line of fire as the biotic shield held. The C-Sec duo got their backs against the walls of the airlock, safe inside the ship's skin.

Shepard _sensed_, as certain as knowing that beneath the largest wave there was a tremor on the seafloor, that the guns were going to fire. She braced for the crash.

It felt like a blunt impact. She rocked backward onto her heels, wincing with narrowed eyes as Udina and his escorts ran across her line of sight. With pure determination she held the energy in, the sphere around the cannons bulging blue-white. Joker hesitated beside her and Udina and his guard ran past.

"Go," Shepard said.

"I'm not leaving you here!"  
"It's safe!"

He grabbed her shoulder, then her hand, and pulled. She tried to concentrate on heading toward safety and holding the sparking, crackling energy that was building to a boil against the biotic field.

The moment they were all in the protection of the ship's skin she let the field go. Energy washed out of her, collapsing the strength in her shoulders and knees, leaving her gasping as if she'd run miles. The cannons fired, a flare of white and then blackened decking smoking outside the airlock.

Shepard turned to see Udina working at the inner door, trying to get in. He didn't know that the AI would recognize its crew…or so she hoped.

She looked up at Joker, at the way worry deepened the lines around his mouth. His hand squeezed and loosened around hers. She didn't know how to say _thank you but it would have been easier if you'd saved yourself first, _but it ended up in her eyes anyway. He did not know what to say: not yet anyway. His expression segued from concerned to what was more usual for him, optimistic and businesslike, which she matched. She squeezed his hand before moving toward the door so that EDI's scanner could identify her.

"They've locked us out, of course," Udina grumbled.

EDI's voice sounded loud through the chamber a second later. "Welcome back, commander."

The outer door closed with the hiss of pressurized air as the atmospheres began to equalize.

"They tried to kill us," Turik said, "and now just let us in?"

"They can't hack EDI." Joker said. "She's too smart."

The inner door slid open.

There was near-silence in the ship, normal engine-hum and console tones providing soft background sound. The three remaining C-Sec guards joined Shepard in getting ready for a fight beyond the edges of the door, but no enemy appeared. After the eardrum-numbing whine of the cannon outside, the steady silence felt like it lay heavy over Shepard.

She flicked a look back to see Joker standing with knees bent beside Udina, his gun tucked ready against his arm just like the others. She couldn't tell him not to protect her. They looked out for each other; that's how it had gone all these years, from Eden Prime to the Collector base.

Both the command center and the forward hall were completely empty, the holographic displays dead. In the bridge, EDI's mushroom-shaped avatar sprouted from its usual place, but red ringed her base like a fungus—and someone was sitting in the pilot's chair. Shepard saw gloved hands hovering over the console, and the back of a bald, leathery head.

Shepard stepped out into the hall and pointed her gun at the back of the invader's skull. The others rayed out behind her. "Put your hands up and turn around."  
The invader followed the former order. His voice was low and sounded like he'd been chewing something corrosive. "Killing me won't help you, Commander Shepard."

"No one is going to be killed if you just explain what you're doing here. You had a chance to take the ship, and now it's passed. Where's my crew?" It was barely a question.

"Somewhere. The others I was hired with dealt with 'em. They're safer than you are now."

Slowly, the intruder stood up and turned around. He was a batarian, with six beady, black eyes. He wore a loose, rust-brown jumpsuit, and one hand held a assault rifle shiny enough that it might have come out of the factory yesterday. Shepard heard the clicks as the C-Sec grunts primed and aimed their weapons.

"We were hired to set up the game and get out," the batarian said.

Shepard asked, "Hired by who?"

The batarian's shoulders hunched. "Doesn't matter. Now I've gotta get out—" He charged forward.

As soon as he pulled the trigger, Shepard was on hers. Two shots hit the C-Sec men, and Shepard's dropped the batarian. Behind her, the turian agent collapsed into Turik's arms and the human yowled. Shepard ducked to his side to pass a dose of medigel over his right arm, his face going nauseatingly pale.

Joker cursed. "Who are these guys?"

Udina looked disgusted. "Dissidents. This is a protest against the geth—and entirely unacceptable."

Turik had slung his subordinate's arm over his shoulder and lowered him to the floor. The human crouched beside him, some of the color returning to his face as he wrapped a frayed strip of cloth torn from his sleeve around the wound. The turian was not so lucky. His eyes had closed and his body began to shiver spasmodically.

"We need to get these two to medical," Shepard said. "Follow me. Turik, stay here and guard the door. I'll order it kept open—"

It was locked. The inner airlock's status indicator glowed as red as if they were in space.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I guess I lied about when Tali was going to come in. But here's a long chapter that should explain what the geth are up to. I ended up speculating more about game three than I expected. I guess writing never turns out exactly how one thought, right?

Thanks so much to those who have been reviewing!

* * *

IV.

"Creator Tali'Zorah, a message has arrived for you on your personal computer."

Tali, halfway up the stubby radio tower that had been malfunctioning for days now, felt the metal supports sway slightly beneath her and curled her toes more tightly around the ladder's rung. "What is it, Legion?"

She looked a body-length down the ladder to where the geth platform was standing on the gently waving, slightly yellowish grass of Daedalus's temperate zone. It was idiotic for her to be up here, she knew, but the radio receiver kept spitting static into the planetary communication channels essential to the study of Daedealus's ecology.

_One day I'm going to live somewhere where things don't need to be fixed!_

"The caller identified himself as Kal'Reegar nar Ralim."

Tali sighed, but began to climb down, even though she'd only stated to survey the problem. Some local animal, something small and fast enough that everyone had seen one but never bothered to catch any, had chewed through some of the wires. Although this would mean a simple replacement almost anywhere else, it would take time for a replacement bundle to be shipped to distant Daedalus. There was another, underlying electrical problem too, one she'd have to dig inside the circuitry to root out. However, she hadn't heard the news from the Fleet in a few days, and it was always nice to hear a familiar voice. Shepard had been busy at the Citadel, and, while Kaiden had stopped by briefly, anyone else Tali considered a friend was scattered to the four corners of the galaxy. Everyone except Reegar.

And Legion, if the geth outrigger counted as a friend.

Tali hopped down from the ladder and joined him in walking through the clearing that had been set up as a research base. Tents were set up for quarian and human workers. Geth had started work on their own caves, set into cliffs or derelict ships, where they could recharge. Standing in file, seemingly lifeless except when specific units were called upon to help the science team, they would have looked threatening standing around the camp like statues if Tali hadn't gotten used to them. When she had first arrived on this planet, she had thought about just how unsuited to living planetside geth were. They didn't _need _to. Sometimes the only sign of life the whole population would show for days at a time would be to shuffle in closer together to pool their intelligence, sometimes forming bizarre branching patterns like Stonehenge or Easter Island. She thought watching them must be something like seeing synapses grow and connect at a macro level.

As Tali watched, Legion trailing her, she saw a pod of geth standing in the field outside the copse of trees. Legion's single eye swiveled on his armored neck to look at them.

_Is it thinking of how it's separated from them? Does it even _think _similarly enough to me to use the same word?_

But when Legion spoke, it wasn't about itself. "Creator Tali'Zorah. Lieutenant Alenko instructed this unit's sub-processes to remind you that there is an approximately nineteen-point-oh-seven chance of your falling from the communications tower and a seventy-eight-point-nine chance of suit rupture on impact should this eventuality occur." As always, he sounded nothing but calm.

Tali winced at the thought of a suit rupture, but was glad that no one could see the movement of her face behind the mask. A flinch wouldn't match the petulant determination in her voice. "That tower is six feet high, Legion. I can take care of myself enough to climb it. And _Kaiden _didn't fix the radio, so someone has to."

They walked in silence a little longer, passing a pod of geth drones—simpler, paler, and fleshier than Legion—plugged in and humming around a solar monitoring station. A few quarians were gathered around a game of Skyllian Five poker, laughing and gesturing in stark contrast to their metal coworkers. "What did he _really_ say?" Tali asked. "Kaiden didn't spit out all those numbers."

"Exact message recorded fifty-two hours ago. Verbatim: Be careful."

"I thought so."

Alongside a one-story prefab warehouse, one of the largest permanent structures on the planet, the bright yellow sun shone down through the trees and dappled the control panel of Tali's desktop computer. She saw the call icon blinking in the corner of the screen and dragged it to the center.

It expanded to show Kal'Reegar sitting down at his own computer, arms folded over his broad chest.

"Reegar."

"Ma'am." The quarian soldier inclined his red-masked head. "Just checking into see how things are going, and to give you some news from the Council."

"It's good to hear from you, and the Fleet. Are you at home now? I thought you'd gone to the Citadel."

Reegar unfolded his arms and shifted. "I'm aboard the _Ralim_. There's been a death in the family. My sister."

"I'm so sorry!" She hadn't known he'd had a sister. She had never thought about his family—but of course a man's whole social network couldn't be a rocket launcher and a girl on another planet. "What happened?"

"It's best we don't discuss it now." His voice had gone even rougher than usual with grief.

Tali found that she'd been wringing her hands and raised one to adjust her cowl instead. "Then, ah, I'm sorry, Reegar." She let silence settle for a moment. "Did Shepard already give her speech?"

"Yeah. It's been broadcast on the extranet, of course. Most of the Council is missing the whole point of anyone being on Daedalus."

Tali glanced at Legion. "And how exactly are they doing that?"

"Geth ownership of the planet is what's being discussed, like it's a colony or somethin'!"

"What? Not their access to a sun?"

"Nope. Just like with everything else, the way they think people should deal is by focusing on a different thing entirely."

Tali sighed. "Shepard would probably agree with you there."

The geth had not been given Daedalus for their own convenience. It was an exile, not a gesture of peace. After the Reapers' age-old extinction method, the Conduit, had failed, and Shepard had destroyed the Collectors' second attempt, the Reapers had put their geth to work on a new project. Haestrom was the first test. The Reapers had been going to funnel carefully prescribed amounts of dark energy into every life-supporting sun in the galaxy, rendering their worlds uninhabitable. They had targeted Earth first, sure that Shepard would attempt to save it—an attempt that had succeeded.

"The problem now," Kal'Reegar was saying, "is that, legally, the Migrant Fleet _owns _the geth. The Council might be ignoring the fact that we're shepherding them, out of spite."

Tali jabbed her forefinger at the screen for emphasis. "We're working hard here to find out what the geth did to those suns so that it doesn't happen again."

Legion spoke up. "All heretic units have been rendered offline."

"I hope that means 'dead'," Reegar said.

Legion's forehead plates shifted. "Dead."

Tali said, "The rest of the geth are helping us here. It's like they've been given community service."

"For their kinsmen murdering billions." Reegar shook his head. "A tricky trouble. Ah, I'm sure you'll do fine. You've shown genius so far."

"I don't know about _genius."_

"I meant what I said, ma'am. I ought to go…" He glanced around. "Preparations, you know."

"Oh, of course. Keelah se'lai, Kal'Reegar, And please remember, you _are _allowed to call me Tali."

"I'll have to get used to that, ma'am. Keelah se'lai."

His pictured faded. Tali turned around and shook her head, feeling a pang of homesickness she didn't want Legion commenting on. _I'll have to get used to that? _Reegar had had almost three years now to get used to it. _Keelah…_

How did the ancestors view the geth, Tali wondered? Even her _cursing_ would be alien to them. Creating VIs to preserve what humans would call the quarians' "gods" had been how the whole creation of artificial life had begun. Unlike the quarians, forever divorced from the history of their homeworld, the geth could never be separate from their ancestors-they were always part of the same growing, learning neural network.

Did that make them…holy?

Tali shook her head again. _Stop trying not to think about Reegar and his poor sister. _

She turned back to Legion. "I'm going back to the radio tower."

For a moment Legion just stood there, face-plates resettling. She was occasionally amazed by how little the geth cared about their reputation in the rest of the galaxy. Their central mind had simply accepted their new base of operations when Legion did. The few dissenters had been destroyed. Tali supposed that it was hard for a centralized intelligence to understand why the opinions of individuals mattered.

When Legion declined to comment, Tali pressed for an answer. "Do you think what the Council is doing is right?"

Legion lifted a few flaps. "Consensus achieved. All platforms agree that one fact is most relevant: the quarians legally own the geth. We will do as you command."

She gave a rueful laugh. With what lifeless words did he throw living, thrashing guilt against her mask! "We technically owned you during the war, too."

"It was a civil war as well as a defensive one."

Tali hadn't expected an answer, nonetheless an argumentative one. "Excuse me?"

The faceplates lowered. "Platforms eleven-hundred though eleven-hundred ninety-two are particularly separatist. In the future they will be encouraged not to contribute to the whole."

Tali shook her head, feeling her own eye-ridges rise in confusion. Legion's words made her think about how the Heretics had been thorns in Legion's side as well….but she could never quite get used to talking to it. "Weird."

She headed for the radio tower, letting Legion decide for itself—themselves—whether or not to follow.

* * *

"You're a bad liar, Kal'Reegar."

Kal rotated his desk chair around. "What was I supposed to tell her? I couldn't go to the Citadel because there's a crazed gunman stalking me?"

The figure that emerged out of the darkness in the doorway was a quarian holding a pistol low in one hand. His voice, pitched so as not to carry, emerged from a dark purple-filled mask that matched the gaudy half-cape slung over one shoulder. The suit stretched over his chest was an embroidered pattern of violet and navy blue. "You don't have a sister."

Kal stood up. The pistol followed his movement, but the intruder showed no signs of alarm. He hadn't shown any since Kal first saw him, when he stepped inside his quarters aboard the _Ralim _just before he had been going to pack his things for the Citadel. "Now you know what Tali's up to," Kal said, refusing to be out-nonplussed. "If you hurt her…"

"She is just one Normandy crewmember I needed to check up on," said the intruder. "Now I have, and since she is going to remain occupied on her…occupied planet I have no reason to bother her. Thank you for your assistance."

Kal didn't have a gun in his room, but the golden service metal on the desk next to his computer would make a decent blunt instrument. He reached for it under pretense of deactivating the computer screens. "Why are you going after the Normandy?"

The gun barrel drifted, tracking him. "Revenge. Nothing petty. Don't think I'm anything but a reasonable man."

"Of course not." Kal leaned his elbow next to the heavy metal plaque. "So, what did Shepard do to you? She's generally a reasonable woman."

"Hm. It isn't all about the Alliance's poster child." He gave a breath so small and quick as to almost be a sniff, but otherwise showed no signs of concern for what he was saying. "At the battle of Calais, Jeff Moreau killed my daughters."

"Joker?" Kal couldn't keep the honest surprise out of his voice, but he could feel his elbow ticking against the service medal. "I barely knew him then-"

He picked up the medal plaque and threw. It missed, smashing against the bulkhead next to the intruder's head. The first shot from his gun landed almost the same distance from Kal'Reegar.

Kal lurched forward, pulling the chair along for cover as he powered across the room. Another shot hit the chair, and in the split second in which Kal planned his next move he thought about how likely it was that it was his last. A point-blank shot to the head might rupture his air supply.

This crazy _bosh'tet _was going after Shepard's family and maybe Tali as well.

Kal tackled the intruder. His back smacked against the grated floor, driving Kal against him and the air from both their lungs. Kal scrabbled to trap the man's gun hand as the other writhed, trying to push him off. A knee crashed into his stomach and Kal rolled forward, out of the office and into the sitting room, pushing his entire weight onto the attacker's wrist and eliciting a satisfyingly strangled cry in the process.

The intruder got to his knees as Kal did the same. The butt of the gun whipped past, nearly smacking against his mask. He followed its path, grabbed the already strained wrist, and twisted.

The gun clattered to the floor as the intruder yowled again and clutched his hand to his chest. Kal scooped up the weapon, but in the next instant the intruder's splayed foot struck him in the chest and shoulder hard enough to rock him backward and force air from his lungs. He grabbed the gun hard, but the intruder only stood and ran. Ridiculous cloak flapping behind him, he made for the door.

_He knows he can't take me, _Kal thought, but it took longer than expected to get to his feet. Breath short and an elbow stinging from where he'd bashed it against the floor, Kal stood up and found his stride just in time to see the intruder cycle his door open and dash down the dark gray corridor of the _Ralim. _Stolen gun in hand, Kal followed.

* * *

Tali perched on top of the radio tower and thought about how to jury-rig the bitten wires. Splicing a P-16 bundle section would work if she adjusted the output. Or, she could ask Kaiden to drop off some of that brilliant human stuff next time he stopped by…what was it called? Duct tape.

The sun was starting to set, the thin trees casting long shadows on the plain. There wouldn't be much more daylight in which to work on the circuitry. She moved a still-functioning strand of wires aside to expose the malfunctioning circuit board. Something didn't look right. She peered closer. "What…"

She slipped one thin hand into the machinery to extract the odd shape. Her suit would protect her from any stray electric shots—one of its few benefits.

Her hand came up holding a reverse clamp, the very tool she'd been using on the frayed ends of the wires the day before. Electricity arced across the severed strands, and Tali jerked her hand back and keyed the emergency shutoff. She started at the clamp, a blunt-toothed, scissor-shaped thing with a handle designed for three-fingered users. It had been blocking the circuit board's paths. This thing that she'd dropped and forgotten about.

"Some genius," she muttered.

Legion was standing at the bottom of the ladder like a loyal dog when she descended.

"I fixed the radio," Tali said. "Partially."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **_This fic is not off hiatus: it's just that I found this chapter nine-tenths of the way done and figured I might as well finish and post it._

_Rated T for Jack. It's really difficult to be both someone who doesn't like to swear either in real life or in writing, and someone who likes to write Jack.

* * *

_

V.

Joker stifled a yawn as he slid into the helmsman's chair. The phantom sensation of a warm blanket thrown across his legs kept reminding him that it was so early in the morning it could more properly be called the tail end of the night. He'd done more walking than usual yesterday. _Anybody _would be tired after that Council meeting.

Being back in the Normandy distracted him from worrying about that, though. He pulled up status reports that showed the ship's VI and life support systems to be running perfectly normally, the engines sleeping.

"EDI, give me camera feeds from the last twelve hours."

No response. He glanced up at the red crawling up the AI's stem. "EDI."

No response. Joker cursed—whether at the AI, the hour, or the whole situation he didn't care—and continued looking through what files he could access on his own.

**The rest of **the ship was eerily silent. Shepard, Udina, and the C-Sec agents emerged from the elevator with weapons ready, but there was no one waiting to ambush them around the curve of the crew deck's hallway. The door to the medical bay was shut, the mess next door looking empty without Gardner behind the counter or anyone stopping by the table for a chat.

Shepard waved Turik and the injured turian he was carrying to the side when she keyed the medbay door open. Udina and the wounded human lurked behind her, the C-Sec man clutching his arm and glaring as if his eyes would serve as well as his discarded gun. Shepard kept her free hand steady near her stomach with her gun ready.

The door swished open. Shepard found herself face-to-face with Kelly Chambers, a fierce expression turning her full lips down. The pistol in her hands was angled down toward the floor, showing the lights tracking the top of the barrel.

When the yeoman saw who she was threatening, her demeanor instantly changed. "Commander!" She leapt up and threw her arms around Shepard's neck. Shepard smiled and tucked her head against Kelly's shoulder, partially because she was glad to see her, and partially to avoid being smacked in the back of the head with the pistol.

"Hey, Kelly."

The young yeoman drew away and looked around Shepard's armored shoulders at the C-Sec men. Her eyes narrowed. "Who are they?"

"Captain Turik, C-Sec." Turik couldn't salute with his squadmate in his arms, but he nodded.

"They're all with me," Shepard said, trying to sound reassuring. "We took out the men in the bridge, and Joker's trying to get us out of here. What's been going on?"

"Come in." Kelly stood aside to let the group pass, gasping with concern when she saw the second wounded man. She lead him carefully to a bed.

"Were you going to shoot the invaders in the foot, miss?" Udina growled.

"Only after I shot them in the head." Gabby Daniels stepped out from the corner on the left side of the doorway, an assault rifle in hand. "Oh. Ambassador!"

Udina grumbled. Sheppard took her focus off Gabby's look of surprise as what appeared to be the survivors of the attack formed a circle around her.

Doctor Chakwas stood up from her chair. Her forehead was decorated with a round splotch of blood, but no wound; either she had gotten to it quickly with medigel, or the blood was someone else's. "Thank goodness you're here, commander."

"Doctor. Are you all right?"

"Just must've brushed my face when I was treating Kenneth."

"There must have been two gangs of 'em." Engineer Donnelly was sitting on one of the cots, next to Gabby. "Someone came up behind me when I called upstairs to figure out why there were gunshots in the CIC. Nearly pushed me into the drive core, but got a good brawl out of it."

"Hey, while you were having a "good brawl" I was trying to fight past three of them to get to the stash Thane left in Life Support." Gabby hefted the gun in her left hand, looking down at him and hesitating with her right hand inches from his. "But I'm glad you're knuckleheaded enough to survive."

Most of the left side of Donnelly's shirt had been cut away, revealing a vivid red burn that stretched from his upper arm across his shoulder to the side of his neck and cheek. His smile was pained but sincere.

Shepard activated her omni-tool and checked to see the extent of his wounds. "Good work protecting the ship. I've got medi-gel if you need more."

"It's taken care of, commander," Chakwas said. "The deep injury has been cooled off; it'll just look ugly for a while."

"Hey, Gabby," Donnely said. "I hear tell that some women like scars."

"I guess the Normandy's one of them," she replied primly.

"Thanks for defending her," Shepard said, first to Donnelly, then looking around at all of them.

"Oh, no problem, commander," Donnely said. "Well, maybe a minor one, but I'll just stay here for a few days and lie around, gettin' patched up." Despite his flippant words, he winced as he spoke, and Shepard felt herself cringe in return. She wouldn't have wished burns on anyone, especially not the talkative engineer.

"We're all going to stay here if we don't find out what locked you in your own ship," Udina said.

"The officer here has wounded men," Shepard told Chakwas. Turik had gotten the other turian into the third bed. Shepard wanted Udina's question answered too, but this was mission triage. "And there are bodies in the bridge."

"I'll take care of them." Chakwas moved to the turian's side and scanned him with her omnitool, but kept looking at Shepard. "But I can't help much with the ambassador's question. I'm afraid I'm better at healing than fighting. People came here as a refuge."

"I'll take care of the bridge," Turik said, and lumbered toward the door, expression downcast.

"Joker can tell you where they can be sealed in the hold," Shepard said quietly as he passed. She had never wanted to use those coffins. "We'll have them buried or…whatever it is batarians do."

Kelly said, "The story's pretty much like Ken told it. This gang of people busted in and split up soon after. I hid out in the armory a little bit before joining the others here. Somebody almost got in here once. I can't stand the idea of killing them, though…they were very eloquent."

"For batarians," Ken grumbled, rotating his shoulder.

"But how did they get in past EDI?" Shepard asked.

"She won't talk," Gabby said. "Not a word. She must've been hacked from the outside."

"Every pro-organic group will rile if they hear the premiere AI in the fleet has been compromised." Udinda made a sound as if he'd been physically injured by the idea.

"She hasn't gone rogue or anything," Gabby said. "She just hasn't done anything." Behind her, Chakwas was bathing the wounded human's arm with medigel.

"Ah, commander?" Kelly said. "Speaking of rogue, I think you should go see Jack."

"Where is she?" Shepard's fear that high-powered biotics, or Jack's colorful past, had come back to haunt her resurfaced. She wasn't good against biotics—and Joker was even worse. Shepard had been born needing a low-powered implant but very rarely ever used her biotic abilities. In her experience, biotic power was more liable to explode in its user's face than a gun was. Living with Kaiden and Jack hadn't done anything to assuage her fears.

Kelly looked nervous.

"She saved my life," Gabby said. "Came up from engineering so fast those batarians didn't have a chance to scream, chased the survivor away. I didn't see where she went."

"I did," Kelly said. "On my way down. You should go see, commander. Maybe you can do something about it."

**Gabby and her **gun accompanied Shepard to the starboard viewing deck, albeit reluctantly. The engineer stopped at the closed door. "She's holed up in here; wouldn't let anyone in. I think she got hit with worse than batarians."

Shepard holstered her gun against the small of her back and flicked a strand of blonde hair away from her eyes. "Worse like what? Ghosts, aliens?" The whole situation was beginning to feel like she needed Ellen Ripley's ability to survive claustrophobic, creature-haunted corridors.

"I'd feel better if you kept the gun ready."

"Jack doesn't react well to antagonism." Shepard reached out to open the door. "Stand back if you want to."

Shepard watched Gabby take a few long steps backwards, still clutching her rifle. She remembered fondly hearing Gabby tease Ken about sharing the engineering deck with "a crazy woman wearing nothing but tattoos". The uneasy alliance between Jack and the rest of the crew had mostly been maintained because Jack didn't want to talk to anyone. Shepard wished her own attempts to form a friendship with the woman had worked, but _friendly _seemed to be the type of person Jack liked least.

_Maybe if I screamed at her for a while…_

Shepard opened the door.

A blue biotic corona stretched across the opening and around the room. Arcs of energy cackled along it, one nearly singing Shepard's face and leaving the heady scent of eezo in her nostrils. Books had been torn from the shelves and pages from their spines. Jack floated in the middle of it all, her arms raised, white lightnings so thick around her that they obscured the patterns and pictures inscribed on her skin.

Shepard spoke quietly. "Jack?"  
The barrio snapped translucent, like the one that had protected the two of them on the Collector base. Jack's eyes were opened but glazed; as Shepard watched they seemed to clear and focus, actually seeing her.

"It's okay, Jack. Everyone who tried to break in is gone."

Jack dropped to the floor. She stalked forward, shoulders switching back and forth like a tiger's. She came close enough her face was blue-tinged by the biotic corona. He tone of her voice gave no indication as to whether she had recognized Shepard since she opened the door, or if she only noticed now. "Shepard."

_She doesn't like friendly. _Shepard said nothing.

Jack brought the barrier down. It seemed to retract, to flare for a moment behind her eyes. She stalked forward. "What's going on here, Shepard? I thought I was safe here."

Shepard eased her hand toward her gun. "You are. We're trying to figure out what happened?"

"What _happened_? We got _invaded. _They had biotics with them, and strong too. A couple asari that managed to escape when.." She looked down.

"When what, Jack?"

Jack looked back up. "You killed 'em all, right? Cause if there's any left.." She pushed past Gabby.

Shepard said, "There aren't any left. We're alone now."

Jack looked over her shoulder. Shepard said, "We're stuck in the ship."

"What? There's gotta be a way out. Bust something down. Let's go."

"The others are gathered in the medical bay—"

Jack whipped around, forcing Gabby to back against the wall. "There's _others_? Did they get their brains fried too, cause, I've got some revenge to do."

"What did they do to you, Jack?" Shepard kept her face stony.

The biotic shook her head. "They _knew _things, Shepard. They knew I'd been in Purgatory and they knew exactly why I was with you, and you're telling me you don't know who just attacked us? I'm dealing with this."

She marched toward the elevator.


End file.
